Global Capital, National State, and the International

Datos Bibliográficos

ID7435565
AutoresWerner Bonefeld (0000-0001-6709-5313, autor de correspondencia)
Año2008
Volumen36
Número1
Páginas63-72
Fecha de publicación2008-03-18
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaCritique (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0011-1600 • E-ISSN: 1968-3901
EditorialRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/03017600801892854
OpenAlexW2007020879
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas16

The article revisits the Conference of Socialist Economists (CSE) debate on the national state and the global economy, and concludes with an appeal to internationalism. Its purpose is to introduce this debate to a new readership. Contemporary analyses of globalisation and the state tackle issues that were of key importance to this debate—yet the specific critical insights that the CSE debate brought to the fore are lost in a world in which ideology is in the process of producing itself. The article argues that regardless of fashion, these insights are as relevant now as they were then. Keywords: StateSocialismInternationalismCapital and Class The article is based on a talk given at the CSE 2006 conference. Originally a set of notes to guide the presentation, the written version retains its original character but the more obvious jumps and leaps have been ironed out, and historical references omitted. I am grateful to participants for their comments. The article is based on a talk given at the CSE 2006 conference. Originally a set of notes to guide the presentation, the written version retains its original character but the more obvious jumps and leaps have been ironed out, and historical references omitted. I am grateful to participants for their comments. Notes The article is based on a talk given at the CSE 2006 conference. Originally a set of notes to guide the presentation, the written version retains its original character but the more obvious jumps and leaps have been ironed out, and historical references omitted. I am grateful to participants for their comments. 2K. Marx and F. Engels, The Communist Manifesto (London: Pluto Press, 1997) pp. 18–19. 3S. Clarke, 'The Global Accumulation of Capital and the Periodisation of the Capitalist State Form', in W. Bonefeld, R. Gunn and K. Psychopedis (eds), Open Marxism, Vol.1: Dialectics and History (London: Pluto Press, 1992) p. 136. H. Radice, 'Globalization, Labour and Socialist Renewal', Capital & Class, no. 75 (2001), pp. 113–126, cited at p. 118. 4P. Burnham, 'Marx, International Political Economy and Globalisation', Capital & Class, no. 75 (2001), pp. 103–112. S. Clarke. 'The State Debate', in S. Clarke (ed.) The State Debate (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 1991). H. Radice, 'The Developmental State under Global Neo-Liberalism: Who is Doing What to Whom', Paper presented at Departmental Seminar, Department of Politics, University of York, March 2006. 5H. Radice, op. cit. S. Clarke, 'Marxism, Sociology and Poulantzas's Theory of the State', in S. Clarke (ed.), The State Debate, op. cit. On the two social theories, see V. Vanberg, Die beiden Soziologien (Tübingen: Mohr, 1975). 6This part draws on S. Clarke, 'The State Debate ...', op. cit. 7C. Kindelberger, American Business Abroad (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1969), p. 207. 8Compared with A. E. Berle, The 20 th Century's Capitalist Revolution (New York: Brace, 1954), Kindelberger's view was neither original nor 'radical' in its conclusions. Berle's study suggested that government should be run by private firms since they are bigger than government, and have at their disposal greater resources in the form of a skilled, experienced and therefore efficient and effective 'service-providers' who know that time is money. On Berle, see J. Agnoli, 'The Market, the State, and the End of History', in W. Bonefeld and K. Psychopedis (eds) The Politics of Change (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2000). 9Kees van der Pijl's influential research into transnational class relations captured these developments in theoretical terms. See K. van der Pijl, 'Class Formation at the International Level', Capital & Class, no. 9 (1979), pp. 1–21. 10On this see P. Murray, as cited in S. Picciotto, 'The Internationalisation of Capital and the International State System', in S. Clarke (ed) The State Debate, op. cit., p. 214. 11Cf. D. Held, Global Covenant: The Social Democratic Alternative to the Washington Consensus (Cambridge: Polity, 2004), and D. Hirst and G. Thompson, Globalisation in Question (Cambridge: Polity, 1999). 12R. Cox, 'Global Perestroika', in R. Miliband and L. Panitch (eds) The Socialist Register: New World Order? (London: Merlin Press, 1992). For critique, see P. Burnham, 'Globalization, Depoliticization and "Modern" Economic Management', in W. Bonefeld and K. Psychopedis (eds) The Politics of Change, op. cit. See also the debate in A. Bieler et al., Global Restructuring, State, Capital and Labour (London: Palgrave, 2006). 13J. Hirsch, Kapitalismus ohne Alternative (Hamburg: VSA, 1989), p. 92, emphasis added. 14More recently, mercantilist visions of a world of trading states have reasserted themselves in the face of the apparent revival of states as the primary agents in world politics, be it in the form of US imperialism, China's 'state-based' search for raw materials as a challenge to market-based globalization, or the apparent failure of a supranational EU. The pendulum continues to swing from market to state and from state to market. Just like Say's law, where demand explains supply, and conversely, supply explains demand, the argument moves in circles. The state points to the market, and the market points to the state, none is explained. 15S. Clarke, Keynesianism, Monetarism and the Crisis of the State (Aldershot: Edward and Elgar, 1988), pp. 143, 178, 179. 16S. Picciotto, op. cit., p. 218. 17K. Marx, Grundrisse (London: Penguin, 1973), p. 108. 18C. von Braunmühl, 'On the Analysis of the Capitalist Nation State within the World Market Context', in J. Holloway and S. Picciotto (eds) State and Capital (London: Edward Arnold, 1978), pp. 163, 168. 19For recent elaborations, see P. Burnham, 'Capital, Crisis and the International State System', and J. Holloway, 'Global Capital and the National State', both in W. Bonefeld and J. Holloway (eds) Global Capital, National State and the Politics of Money (London: Palgrave, 1996). See also W. Bonefeld, 'The Spectre of Globalisation', in W. Bonefeld and K. Psychopedis, op. cit. H. Radice, 'Globalization, Labour ...', op. cit., p. 118. 21S. Clarke, 'The State Debate', op. cit. 22B. Warren, cited in S. Picciotto, op. cit., pp. 214–215. 23A. Mitchell, Competitive Socialism (London: Unwin, 1989), p. 61. 24L. Panitch, ' "The State in a Changing World": Social-Democratizing Global Capitalism?', Monthly Review, 50:5 (1998). 25H. Radice, 'Responses to Globalization: A Critique of Progressive Nationalism', New Political Economy, 5:1 (2000), pp. 5–19. 26L. Panitch, 'Globalisation and the State', in L. Panitch and R. Miliband (eds) The Socialist Register (London: Merlin Press, 1994), pp. 87, 89. L. Panitch, 'The New Imperial State', New Left Review, no. 2 (March–April 2000), pp. 5–20. 27See H. Radice, 'The National Economy: A Keynesian Myth?', Capital & Class, no. 22 (1984), pp. 111–140. 28L. Weiss, The Myth of the Powerless State (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998). D. Hirst and G. Thompson, Globalisation ..., op. cit. J. Hirsch, 'Globalisation of Capital, Nation-States and Democracy', Studies in Political Economy, no. 54 (1997), pp. 39–58. 29S. Clarke, 'The State Debate ...', op. cit, pp. 3–4. 30S. Clarke, 'State, Class Struggle, and the Reproduction of Capital', in S. Clarke (ed.) The State Debate, op. cit, p. 198. 31J. Hirsch, op. cit., p. 47. 32H. Radice, 'Globalization ...', op. cit., p. 113. 33K. Marx, Capital, vol. I (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1983), p. 707. 34A. Hoogvelt, Globalization and the Post-Colonial World (London: Palgrave, 1997), p. 49. 35On this, see W. Bonefeld, 'The Capitalist State: Illusion and Critique', in W. Bonefeld (ed.) Revolutionary Writing (New York: Autonomedia, 2003). 36W. Benjamin, 'Geschichtsphilosphische Thesen' in Zur Kritik der Gewalt und andere Aufsätze (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1965), p. 84. 37S. Clarke, 'Class Struggle and the Global Overaccumulation of Capital', in R. Albritton et al. (eds), Phases of Capitalist Development, (London: Palgrave, 2001), pp. 90–91. 38On this see W. Bonefeld, 'Anti-Globalization and the Question of Socialism', Critique, 34:1 (2006), pp. 39–59, and W. Bonefeld, 'Die Zeit der Transformation', AK – Zeitung (Berlin/Hamburg), no. 515, 16 March 2007, p. 31. 39Cf. N. Brenner, New State Spaces (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). 40K. Marx and F. Engels, Die deutsche Ideology, MEW 3 (Berlin: Dietz, 1962), p. 77

Capital (architecture · Elite Sociology and Global Capitalism · International Development and Aid